Dismissals and Deferrals

Many New Mexico drivers have received ‘guilty deferred’ sentences for traffic violations. A ‘deferred’ sentence is one for which drivers must satisfy conditions as established by a Court – such as attending driving school, community service, a 90-day probation period during which the driver must maintain a clean record, etc. Upon compliance with court conditions, the citation is dismissed.

You can check your driving record status with the MVD Integrated Voice Response (IVR) System:

Call Toll-Free 1-888-683-4636 (1-888-MVD-INFO)

Follow the voice prompts and choose option 3

The system will locate your record and tell you if the license is valid or not. If the response is "invalid" it will also tell you why it is invalid in terms of a general reason.

If your driving record shows that you received a sentence for a traffic violation within the last three years and you think it was ‘deferred’ by the Court, then MVD staff will research your record and respond back to you within 48 hours.

MVD staff will need to verify that your sentence was ‘deferred’ and that you have complied with the Court requirement(s). Most of this research can be done on-line by MVD staff, but in some cases (such as a requirement to attend driving school), MVD staff may ask you to contact the Court to get proof of your compliance with the sentence and the citation dismissal.

If MVD staff ask you to provide proof of your compliance with the sentence requirements and citation dismissal, you must contact the Court and request an official document showing sentence compliance and citation dismissal. The document should be on Court letterhead, have the issuing clerk’s signature and date, and have a matching citation number for the compliance issue. You can then fax the original certified Court document to the MVD at 505-827-2783 or 505-827-2267.